Berg Thomas Bjørneboe, Colchero Fernando, Jones Owen R, Sanderhoff Lene, Juškaitis Rimvydas
Research Department Natural History Museum, Naturama Svendborg Denmark.
PopBio Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark Odense Denmark.
Ecol Evol. 2025 Jun 11;15(6):e71440. doi: 10.1002/ece3.71440. eCollection 2025 Jun.
Recent research has found that, among some mammal species, differences in environmental conditions among populations of the same species drive changes in infant and juvenile mortality, but not in the rate of senescence, also known as the rate of ageing. Although this pattern has been confirmed in primates and some carnivores, it remains untested on other taxonomic groups with faster life histories, such as rodents. Here, we analysed age-specific survival in Hazel Dormouse, using a 24-year capture-mark-recapture data set from Lithuania. We used Bayesian survival trajectory analysis (BaSTA) and tested different models of age-specific mortality. The population has experienced three distinct demographic phases-increasing (1999-2006), declining (2007-2014) and stable-low abundance (2015-2022). We divided the dataset into these three periods to assess changes in survival over time. During all three periods, the life expectancy of males was larger than that of females, contrary to the general mammalian trend of higher female survival. Differences in survival among the three periods were primarily due to changes in age-independent mortality and ageing rates, but not due to changes in juvenile mortality. Our findings support the notion that the low variance rate of ageing is limited to species with slow life histories. However, they also suggest that rodents, even those like the Hazel Dormouse which can reduce exposure to external threats, can substantially modulate their ageing rates in response to environmental variation.
最近的研究发现，在一些哺乳动物物种中，同一物种不同种群的环境条件差异会导致幼崽和幼年个体死亡率的变化，但不会导致衰老速度（也称为老化速度）的变化。尽管这种模式在灵长类动物和一些食肉动物中已得到证实，但在其他具有更快生活史的分类群（如啮齿动物）中仍未得到验证。在此，我们利用来自立陶宛的一个为期24年的标记重捕数据集，分析了榛睡鼠特定年龄的存活率。我们使用贝叶斯生存轨迹分析（BaSTA）并测试了不同的特定年龄死亡率模型。该种群经历了三个不同的人口统计学阶段——增长阶段（1999 - 2006年）、下降阶段（2007 - 2014年）和稳定低丰度阶段（2015 - 2022年）。我们将数据集分为这三个时期，以评估存活率随时间的变化。在所有这三个时期，雄性的预期寿命都长于雌性，这与哺乳动物中雌性存活率更高的一般趋势相反。这三个时期存活率的差异主要是由于与年龄无关的死亡率和衰老率的变化，而不是由于幼年死亡率的变化。我们的研究结果支持这样一种观点，即衰老的低变率仅限于生活史缓慢的物种。然而，它们也表明，啮齿动物，即使是像榛睡鼠这样能够减少外部威胁暴露的物种，也可以根据环境变化大幅调节其衰老率。
